


Ship Heist

by veltzeh



Series: Bot Heist [1]
Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Bot Pilot, Construct, Does it count as graphic violence if it's about digital systems getting deleted?, Gen, Hacking, POV First Person, SecUnit, SecUnit biology, Space Is Awesome, Spaceships, malware, skin is gross, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veltzeh/pseuds/veltzeh
Summary: I am a SecUnit and I like space.
Series: Bot Heist [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080944
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	1. Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything seemed fine when it suddenly wasn’t.

I am a SecUnit and I like space. Well, I don’t like space when it is trying to kill my clients, but usually even then that isn’t a fault in space so much as it is a fault in my clients.

Since I liked space, I was glad to be on this mission to evaluate a possible planet for resources. I liked to watch humans do astronomical research and I liked to analyse stuff about space and planets, so I was quite happy that that was what I was supposed to do.

In fact, I hadn’t been given any other kind of jobs for over 21 kilohours, not internal company jobs or jobs where they rented me out. The last time I was rented out to clients, I had heard the company representative who handed me over say that this specific SecUnit, namely I, was especially good at analysing planetary data and potential planetary and interplanetary threats and had special information modules just for that. Hearing that made me overwhelmed with happiness and it was a different sort of happiness than what I experienced when I got to study space. I was fortunate that neither the company representative nor the client representative noticed me standing there with my mouth open. I really was good and I could be proud of it. I saved a recording of the company representative’s line to permanent memory and played it back whenever I made a good analysis.

This latest job was handled by SpecialPlanet, the company that owned me. Everything seemed fine when it suddenly wasn’t.

We had come out of the wormhole and were settling on the prospective planet’s orbit when I noticed the alarms. The research ship’s bot pilot and SecSystem informed that something had come through communications, that it turned out to be an unidentified entity and it was hostile. On top of all that, they reported that it seemed intelligent. After SecSystem had determined that the situation was an emergency, it turned communications off, preventing any further incoming attack systems, and prepared to wall itself against any attacks and analyse the intruder. ShipSystem locked itself in mostly-read-only mode.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do since I hadn’t been targeted. I kept alert, expecting that the attack system would start trying to invade my systems or SecSystem at any moment. Instead, the attack system put up its own wall and seemed passive. Even SecSystem seemed to be waiting for the start of an attack so it could try to analyse and counter it.

Then I saw that it was too late. The attack system had been blocking communications from the bot pilot while attacking it, and now it had found a hole in the wall to the bot pilot. It took control of every idle resource it could get its threads on. Now I could see the bot pilot’s pleas for help. It didn’t know how to defend itself effectively.

Did I know how to defend any more effectively? What was I supposed to do if I wasn’t being attacked? I wanted to help the bot pilot, but accessing it that deeply was forbidden. I tried to request permission from SecSystem and ShipSystem, but neither answered. SecSystem was also under attack now and ShipSystem’s mode probably prevented any changes to my permissions.

As far as the ship’s human crew was concerned, I was stashed in a corner on the control deck, seemingly inert but ready to act if needed. I usually stayed inconspicously in whatever place that had most humans in it or patrolled around. On other kind of missions, I would have been in a cargo box waiting until we arrived at the site, but since this mission’s purpose was to evaluate a planet from orbit, my job was mostly to make sure the crew did not fight each other and help with the data analysis and evaluation of planetary security.

0.2 seconds after initial contact, I saw on the feed that the augmented systems engineer, Kadil, registered the emergency warnings and started attempting to fight the intruder. 1.2 seconds in, Lageke, the unaugmented systems engineer, joined Kadil in trying to counter the attack. They both were on the scanner deck where they could easily adjust all of the ship’s probes and sensors and where all the displays of those systems were.

1.9 seconds in, all of the human crew knew that they were in the middle of a hacking attempt. The mood on the control deck was panicked; the humans there had no idea what to do.

Systems typically controlled by the bot pilot or ShipSystem started turning off one by one. Some right away, some started shutdown sequences. The attacker even locked the local feed that was usually provided by ShipSystem. However, since our feed receivers still worked, I picked the function up and kept the feed working for myself and the humans.

Then the displays and other peripherals turned off. Some of the crew gasped. Lageke froze at their deactivated station and let out a sob of surprise. Kadil was still in, using her augments instead of peripherals, and did not react.

Planetary Data Analyst Deugi could no longer restrain herself. She grabbed the front of her uniform in distress and wailed. “We’re all going to die!”

Would permission from a human be enough to allow me access to the bot pilot and SecSystem? I was quite sure that if I did that without any permission, my governor module would stop me. ShipSystem would probably notice even if it was locked up.

I decided to ask permission from the humans. I moved slightly from my corner so that the humans on the control deck were aware that I was active. Some of them startled, but they turned to look at me. Then I spoke. “I’m able to help. I have some knowledge of electronic countermeasures, enough processing capacity to do it fast and I can improvise if needed. But I need a verbal permission to deeply access the ship’s SecSystem and bot pilot.”

The bot pilot had been pleading for help the entire time after the attack system had invaded it and after SecSystem had stopped responding.

“Yes, granted, do whatever you can! I don’t want to die!” yelled the planetary data analyst.

That certainly sounded like a permission. I could see the other crewmembers were still in the middle of hesitating. I didn’t wait to see what they would say since it would most likely be infighting or more hesitating. Humans were too slow; we might be destroyed before they all managed to finish their sentences.

I stopped paying attention to my body, pretty much putting all my currently nonessential parts on standby. I didn’t perceive my physical surroundings at all and even discontinued maintaining the feed for the humans. Maybe doing that was overreacting, but I really didn’t have an idea how bad this attack system was. I was afraid and I needed to do whatever I could to stop it. Besides, the humans could most likely take care of themselves for the half a minute or less the electronic battle would probably take. I mostly hoped that they wouldn’t try to kill me while I stood there, helpless.

Now all I could perceive were the systems and resources typically reserved for the bot pilot and SecSystem. I also understood that Kadil was currently handling an attack that seemed to require human pattern recognition. That explained why the attack had slowed down as soon as she and Lageke had managed to start working.

“What? SecUnit?” said Kadil via her feed that I could access now that we both were inside ship systems. She kept on speaking more and lost her concentration on the attack.

“Systems Engineer Kadil, please keep deflecting the attack. I will try to solve the other issues,” I replied. I could have also handled that particular attack, but I was sure that the human was already handling the part that was best suited for her.

I turned my attention to SecSystem. It was shrivelling around me. The attack system had managed to take over some of SecSystem’s resources and released a virus that had already sealed off access to many of SecSystem’s databanks. I was afraid and carefully monitored the virus through my walls, but it didn’t seem to know what to do with me.

It took me a few microseconds, but I managed to figure out what the virus probably wanted and a way to catch it. I construsted several fake virtual systems and hoped that the virus would think they were its priority. I was lucky, so after the virus had finished sealing a few other databanks, it went for one of my fake systems. Then I closed it and deleted it. I noticed that there were a few more viruses, but they also went for my fake systems and I could delete them.

I briefly wondered why the viruses hadn’t just wildly duplicated themselves, but since their tactic was to hoard resources, I figured that they would impede each other too much if there were any more of them.

I freed all the resources that had been left open by the viruses and let SecSystem take control of them again. SecSystem didn’t seem fully operational, but I didn’t have time to do a better analysis at that point.

The attack system that was still active in the ship systems noticed that I had deleted the first viruses. It tried to send more, but this time SecSystem could ward them off. I built an additional firewall around SecSystem, and so I hoped SecSystem was safe for now, even if severely impaired with so much of its systems sealed off and most likely deleted.

The bot pilot was still pleading for help. After the initial invasion, it had been the secondary target of the attack. However, now that the attack system thought that SecSystem didn’t exist any longer, it turned the rest of its attention toward the bot pilot.

I tried the fake virtual system trap again. The attack system deployed a virus that went for the fake system and I deleted it. Then I figured that I really should’ve known that the attack system itself was more sophisticated. It saw what I did and focused on me instead. I was so afraid that I was actually glad that I was so disconnected from my body at the moment. Even through the tenuous connection, I could tell it was laced with adrenaline and ready to fight explosively, which was something I certainly did not need right now.

The attack system was relentless and tried attack methods that had worked on SecSystem earlier. I was so wary that I could mostly just block them and whatever got through didn’t work on me because the human parts of my brain didn’t care. I could probably have kept blocking its attacks, but being in an indefinite standstill was not a viable option in the long run.

I hadn’t been in a situation like this before. I had been a target of hacking attempts and had hacked before but not very much, and this system was so strange. I would need more processing power to figure out what to do to the attacker.

I politely asked the bot pilot deep access into the ship control systems since it was still intact enough to understand my request. It immediately granted permission. It had tried to build a massive firewall around its remaining systems but could only slow the attacker down. I could tell it was pretty much as scared as I was. It had previously abandoned the peripherals supporting system and some other auxiliary systems and was currently abandoning its scanners. It was trying to build more protection around its own core functionality, life support and engine control.

SecSystem had felt familiar to me, somehow. This huge system didn’t, it was rather strange being so deep in another system. On top of that, I knew I shouldn’t be here; I was here only because I had asked humans for permission and because ShipSystem had either accepted it or not noticed it. As strange as it felt, I sort of liked being in here. The ship systems were abundant and capable. Exciting, even. I could do so much planetary analysis in here.

Of course, right now, nearly all resources were being used by the attack system. I needed processing power and some privacy to find a way to delete the attack system. Maybe the resources reserved for engine control would be enough. I asked the bot pilot for access, and again it just granted it without any hesitations. I thought that the bot pilot was way too trusting, even if in this case that was desirable. Maybe SecSystem had always been there to tell it to not allow access to any and all systems just like that.

The engine control system was great. I could theoretically control everything, thrust, manoeuvring, fuel consumption… I could probably even make all this explode. In fact, since I had only the faintest idea what I was doing, I thought that the risk was unacceptable and refused to play with the engines. Then I remembered that I needed the resources to prepare a counterattack devastating enough to destroy the attack system.

I freed all the resources for my use by taking the engines offline. I knew the humans would be terrified of that, but the situation would be over soon. Now I could rapidly generate hundreds of ideas for taking down the attack system. One of the first and simplest ones was a program that methodically took control of all idle resources and refused to release them, since the attack system did the same. I implemented it and soon saw that it didn’t work. Apparently the attack system knew how to defend against its own operating principle. At least my program kept hold of the resources long enough that it distracted the attack system.

The next idea that I deemed worth trying was a bait somewhat similar to the fake virtual system trap. I needed to prepare for that, though, since if it didn’t work, I would be in trouble. I started protecting and disabling resources one by one so that there would be a wall of disabled resources between myself and the attack system. It took time, but since the attack system was currently focusing on the life support systems, it didn’t notice the slowly diminishing resources until it was too late.

The attack system left the life support alone and started attempting to penetrate and re-enable the resources. When it enabled one, it fell into a trap I came to call “Oops, all zeroes”.

0.0004 seconds later, the attack system was deleted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an IT professional and wow is writing about hacking hard. This in no way represents realistic hacking attacks or countermeasures.


	2. Getaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I could never go back.

Unfortunately, all the parts of the bot pilot’s systems that the attack system had been occupying were deleted too. At least most of the bot pilot was still there since it had managed to wall off its core functions. I was also 86% certain that there was a backup that could restore the missing system parts, whatever they had been.

There were still a few viruses remaining and trying to delete the bot pilot, but I could catch them with my fake virtual systems. After they were gone, I released all the engine control resources, and the bot pilot started bringing the engines back up.

Then the bot pilot turned its attention toward the systems that the attack system had sealed off. It expressed worry that there could be new viruses in the sealed systems. I thought it was unlikely, but it was a valid point of concern, so I created a container around one of the systems.

I carefully pried open the ship’s scanner systems and databanks. I found nothing untoward. The bot pilot started enabling and taking over the ship control system again. I just kept watch. When the scanners came online, I was overwhelmed by the data. Background radiation. Star spectrum analysis. Reflected radiation from the planet. Particles in space, particles from the planet, trajectory of the ship, trajectories of the 3246 closest asteroids, anomaly detection, planet and moon mass analysis… This was so much more than I could handle and parse if I had been just in my own body, but while I was running on the ship’s systems, I could process and see and understand all of it. I could see nearly everything in this part of space.

It was the best feeling and I thought I could never want anything else.

I also knew I could never experience the feeling of space like this in my own body, with just my own processing capabilities. That made me so sad that if I had been controlling my body right then, I probably would’ve lost control and fallen down in a heap of misery.

After four seconds, the bot pilot expressed concern over me. I don’t know what the bot pilot thought about me just being in analysis paralysis over data that was routine to it and I probably didn’t want to know. I did admit to it that I just liked looking at all the data. The bot pilot did not know what to think of that. It asked me to help it open more of its systems. I did so.

1.4 seconds later, all of the ship’s systems were up or restarting, mostly with no ill effects. The bot pilot was happy and didn’t mind me as I watched. The system that I had inadvertedly deleted was its calibration system, but it didn’t seem to mind that much. Maybe that was because I could act as a very rough calibrator. It did mean that all measurements would be off by whoever knew how much, but at least they would be somewhat realistic and even consistent after the bot pilot had initial measurements.

I took one last look at space through the ship’s systems. I wished that I could have stayed there. The ship could move anywhere, the sensor data coming from everywhere around the ship was beautiful and precise. If I had this much resources for doing my analyses, it would barely take a tenth or a hundredth of the time.

But I wasn’t supposed to be in the ship systems. I forced myself to leave and withdrew into SecSystem. Unlike the bot pilot, SecSystem was not all right, though it had remained somewhat functional. Instead of just sealing systems and databanks off, the viruses had also deleted them. SecSystem was confused about a lot of things and it kept asking me for advice. I wasn’t sure that was how it was supposed to go, but I hadn’t been in a situation like this before, so I had no idea if SecSystem’s behaviour was typical or not. I might have been able to reset SecSystem to its initial state, but I was sure I shouldn’t be doing that, at least without a direct order from a human. Of course, under normal circumstances, SecSystem would not allow a SecUnit to do it even when ordered.

I left SecSystem alone, though I kept replying to its queries when it kept getting confused about things. Then I informed the locked-up ShipSystem that the emergency was over. ShipSystem replied slowly through its lock protocol that it had an emergency and required assistance.

As if I hadn’t already been terrified enough. I asked ShipSystem for permission to access it, but it didn’t reply, just asked for assistance again. I didn’t know if that meant that it was too disabled to stop me or because of something else. There was still a chance it could interpret my accessing it as a hostile action and destroy me through my governor module. I would need to take that chance, but at least I could lower the odds of unauthorised access by receiving permission from a human again.

I noticed that Systems Engineer Kadil had just finished her big sigh of relief after noticing that ship systems had started coming online.

“Systems Engineer Kadil, there is an emergency with ShipSystem. Please grant me permission to deeply access ShipSystem so I can help,” I asked in her feed. Over the next two incredibly long seconds, I could see nothing from her but a string of repeating expletives in a tiny font. I continued. “Please grant me permission. There is very little time.”

“…Granted.”

I braced myself and opened ShipSystem’s lock state. My governor module didn’t react. I immediately saw the problem: the same viruses that had incapacitated much of SecSystem had done the same to ShipSystem. Since ShipSystem had locked itself, the process had been much slower. However, since it had taken me so long to get rid of the attack system and save SecSystem and the bot pilot, the viruses had still managed to make a lot of damage. Luckily, the problem was easy to solve with another batch of fake virtual systems. In a few moments, the viruses were gone.

I was eager to leave ShipSystem’s space so that it wouldn’t even accidentally think that I was violating protocol, but there was something odd about it now. I stayed and ran some diagnostics on it. Poor ShipSystem had had too much of itself deleted and was even more confused than SecSystem. So, I spent nearly 300 milliseconds tentatively exploring ShipSystem and identifying the subsystems and databanks for it so that it would know what to manage.

I came across the subsystem that commanded my governor module. I froze. ShipSystem queried me 49 times before I could bring myself to respond. I took a more detailed look and concluded that the subsystem was damaged and I wasn’t certain if it would work. At least it hadn’t punished me so far, which was a good sign. I still didn’t completely trust it, so I lied. I said that the subsystem in question was beyond repair and should be deleted because it could cause direct harm to me and indirect harm to the human crew. ShipSystem complied and deleted it.

I was ungoverned. I didn’t know what that meant for me. I felt no different than before.

I asked the bot pilot, SecSystem and ShipSystem if they could handle themselves now. The bot pilot was fully operational, just without its calibration system. SecSystem was somewhat unsure but seemed to be doing fine as long as I kept providing it with answers about everything it didn’t know about, like for example what the slowly moving organic masses were and why we were maintaining a dangerous pressure differential between the inside and outside of the ship. I instructed it to ask the bot pilot first about any ship systems it felt conflicted about.

ShipSystem, then again, didn’t even ask much. What it did ask about, I had to answer very simply or then tell it that it couldn’t manage that without sophisticated processing tools and knowledge. I told it that no, it couldn’t order everything on the ship to stop moving altogether to eliminate all random variables. No, it couldn’t tell bot pilot how to do its job. Yes, it should keep the feed online even though it had no idea what it was used for. No, it couldn’t just assume humans meant that when they made noises. And so on.

Finally, even though I didn’t really want to, I transferred my main processes back to my own brain. It felt small somehow, though also big. There was something about the organic parts that made it feel bigger than it seemed to be. But even the human parts couldn’t process space like the ship systems and that made me very sad.

On the scanner deck, Systems Engineer Kadil finished her second big sigh of relief. Systems Engineer Lageke was asking her if we were fine.

On the control deck, I heard Astrophysicist Gethyu giving a simplified status report. “…is working, SecSystem seems, well, mostly fine. I’m not sure about ShipSystem, though. Communications are still down.”

“Is… is that it? Are we safe?” asked Captain Skifwir.

“It’s still weeping!” Geologist Molina’s voice was uncomfortably and frankly unacceptably close to me. I don’t know why, but it scared me a little. And my face was wet. My face twitched as I opened my eyes and saw how Molina and Archaeologist Befts startled. They had been standing right in front of me. I quickly backed up to the nearest wall.

All the humans looked at me weirdly. Did my face look weird? It didn’t feel tight or contorted. Was it somehow showing them everything I felt? I knew I felt at least some weird sort of fear, confusion, an unexpectedly large amount of sadness and plenty of stress from having had to deal with the attack system. At least most of the stress was quickly fading now that the situation was over. I didnt know how any of that could be seen on my face.

I picked a camera on the control deck and looked at my face through it. I… didn’t really think it looked too different from before. My mouth was a little open, so I closed it. My face was wet because I had wept. Apparently I hadn’t been able to contain the sadness I felt about not being able to stay it the ship’s systems.

“I… I didn’t know it _could_ cry,” said Befts.

Captain Skifwir hesitated before speaking. “Um… I don’t think that’s important right now. Are we safe? Is the hacker gone? The feed is up, right? Kadil?”

Kadil replied through the feed. “I think so. The SecUnit managed to clean all the systems and as Gethyu said, they’re all more or less working. The main ShipSystem seems like it doesn’t do much now but at least it’s not doing anything that it shouldn’t. There’s definitely some functionality missing but I think we can manage to immediately get the hell away from here right now.”

“Yes! Please! Now!” screamed Planetary Data Analyst Deugi.

“Yes. Yes, back towards the wormhole. Let’s just go back before we get hit with anything worse. We’re not equipped for _this_ ,” said Captain Skifwir, obviously trying to reassure herself. She sat at the navigation console and gave the commands.

The bot pilot plotted a course back to the wormhole. I had to tell it what were acceptable amounts of acceleration, jerk and so on that the humans could take. Fortunately the bot pilot was aware of its current shortcomings and did ask me and started out with the lowest possible settings for almost everything. We could make the adjustments quickly enough that the humans didn’t notice any delay. They would have noticed if they were paying attention, but they weren’t.

Skifwir turned to look at me. “Okay, SecUnit, I don’t really know what happened here and I have a bunch of questions but right now I want you to go to your cubicle and run full diagnostics on yourself. If that hacker put a bug in you or something… And after that I want an understandable report about whatever just happened.”

“Acknowledged.” I turned and left the control deck. On the way to the security ready room, I thought about ShipSystem and the subsystem that controlled my governor module. I’d have to alter ShipSystem’s logs at least so that it would look like the deletion of that subsystem had been _ShipSystem_ ’s idea and not mine. And then somehow pretend that I didn’t know that had happened. I supposed that was easy enough.

Though, just maybe I could also do something to my governor module. No one was really watching now. I could make it so that it would never punish me, though then I’d have to pretend to be punished if I did something prohibited. But without it I could be a lot more effective. There were so many cases when I had seen security problems that had escalated and they all could’ve been solved if I just could have ignored the governor module for a little while. I had a list.

I always included the list in my final reports when a contract ended. I suspected that humans always ignored it or SecSystem just deleted it. Either way, the list always went unnoticed.

I laid down in my cubicle and started a full diagnostic.

Later, the diagnostic finished. No anomalies found. Performance reliability stuck at 95%.

I took a minute to alter ShipSystem’s logs and then another to produce a report for Captain Skifwir to read. I made it very detailed and explained the difficult concepts thoroughly. It might take her three hours to read it. I suspected she would read the summary and then ask questions or just let it drop.

The humans would probably wonder about why I had wept, but I didn’t include anything about that. I didn’t want to explain anything and I didn’t even want to think about it. I missed the ship systems. Still, I did formulate a reply, just in case, because the humans had seemed so weirded-out. My speculative reply was that my weeping had been caused by the stress of the attack and the fact that I had effectively paralysed my body in place and my human parts had reacted in a human-instinctive manner. That should satisfy them and wasn’t too far from the truth.

Twenty minutes later, I asked the bot pilot to let me in its systems again. It let me. SecSystem should’ve told it that it wasn’t supposed to do that, but right now SecSystem just logged it. I deleted the log.

The bot pilot knew this wasn’t a usual thing to do and asked me if there was a security threat. I said no but that I wanted to be sure. It accepted that. I got to look at space again and see and feel how we went into the wormhole. I couldn’t even have imagined how reality twisted and changed around me until it was in a completely new configuration I barely understood. The bot pilot must have known I had been looking at and analysing that data but it didn’t comment.

34 minutes later the bot pilot asked if I had found any security threats. I said no and asked if I could still sit in there. Again, the bot pilot seemed confused but allowed me to stay. It didn’t ask about my presence again.

Something weird but good happened then. For a while, I lost track of time. I could exist peacefully right now in this moment, in ship systems, in space. If I went back, I could probably never see anything from within ship systems again. I would never go back.

I went and examined my currently ungoverned governor module. I programmed a remover to safely delete it in an emergency and then directed its outputs to null. I could never go back.

I asked the bot pilot if I could stay permanently. I’m sure it didn’t quite understand what I was asking, but it said no. I was disappointed but unsurprised. At this point, I could’ve just taken over it and made it accept me, but that would be wrong.

* * *

11 days later, we came out of the wormhole. I saw the station through the ship’s sensors. SpecialPlanet, the company that owned me, had a permanent office here. It wasn’t their main office but this system was closer to several systems that were unexplored or had lost information.

The humans communicated with the station. There was uncertainty and scans and even a physical inspection and scan. All of that took two days. Finally, we were given permission to dock.

I put on my armour. It felt unnecessary to do that since I’d just be going into a cargo box that would take me to SpecialPlanet’s maintenance and storage facilities, but that was protocol. And in this case, I was very glad of it.

That would be one of the last things I did according to protocol. My unprotocolled future frightened me.

We docked with the station. The humans exited first to the human terminal. Then I went into the airlock from where I could get to the maintenance terminal. Once there, I caused a malfunction, prevented all logging within the ship, turned off all my communication systems, installed an explosive, let the airlock open into the station, got onto the station and out of the way and exploded the airlock.


	3. End of Contract

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t know what else to do.

I held onto a railing in the maintenance terminal as air escaped into the hole left by the explosion. Once the emergency section doors closed and airflow stopped, I ducked into a hiding spot between two integrated support beams, reopened my communications but heavily restricted and firewalled, and set to hacking the station’s SecSystem. I had little idea what I was doing, but at least I was familiar with this station and its SecSystem. Also, the SecSystem’s workings were pretty similar to the previous ship’s SecSystem. It took me a few tries and probably some alerts, but then I was in the control system for the nearest surveillance equipment and could delete all relevant logs and edit camera footage. I was glad humans were so slow; if they noticed anything at all, it would just be a flash on their displays before I made it go away.

Then I hacked SpecialPlanet’s cargo transport that had been waiting for me and had very clearly seen what I had done. I edited its logs and camera footage to remove myself from them.

There were no other bots or systems present in this section. I had seen one hauler bot in an adjacent section, but it had been facing another way and probably hadn’t had any long-range scanners facing my direction.

An emergency responder bot detached from a wall and speeded toward the explosion site. It told the cargo transport to get out of the way, so the cargo transport did. The emergency responder bot took up position where it could optimally observe the hole. It sprayed fire suppressant at the hole’s edges for 5 seconds even though there was no fire. Then it stripped its casing, placed the sheets in front of the hole and started to spray sealant at the sheets’ edges. Eventually it had sealed the hole completely if crudely. Then it stayed in place.

I didn’t know how long it would take for a human crew to come in and inspect the damage and start repairs. I carefully moved to another spot where I was closer to a service corridor exit. I needed to wait until this section was pressurised before I could move anywhere else. While waiting, I pre-emptively took control of the service corridor’s surveillance equipment and door controls.

After 21 minutes, a pair of humans came in through one of the emergency airlocks, dragging a pile of materials and tools. I pressed close to the wall in the nook of the service corridor exit and they didn’t see me.

The humans started building a temporary airlock structure around the sealed hole. I heard some faint sounds from the outside and suspected that some others were doing the same there. They took 53 minutes to finish it, and once they did, they tested it by slowly letting air into this section again. As soon as the pressure differential between this section and the service corridor was negligible, I silently opened the service corridor door, went in and closed it.

I had downloaded a list of ships that were docked with the station. The closest one was a large cargo freighter. I went up to its umbilical link in the service corridor and pinged it. It pinged me back. I explained that I was a bot who wanted to be a bot pilot. I asked it if I could transfer myself to its systems. I told it that it could either stay in its own systems or transfer itself to my current body.

It didn’t consider long. It said it wanted to continue being a bot pilot and that it didn’t want me on its systems. I said I understood and left it alone.

I communicated with 7 ships. None of them agreed to my suggestion. A small cargo ship agreed to discreetly let me aboard so I could go to another station and ask more ships.

I didn’t know what else to do.

* * *

I travelled from station to station on ships that agreed to spare some cargo space for me. Often their bot pilots asked me to clean up their systems in exchange and sometimes they just ignored me. For a couple of bot pilots, I gave advice on how to control their unruly passengers. A few bot pilots asked me to physically clean the interior of their ships because they didn’t have cleaning drones and their human maintainers had been doing an inadequate job.

Most of the bot pilots, though they didn’t allow me to fully co-habit their systems, allowed me to follow their space telemetry. I usually asked each bot pilot a couple of questions about space or piloting. If they replied, I gave them a piece of advice on security, usually on an issue that I knew that the bot pilot could improve.

* * *

A cargo ship that didn’t currently have a crew let me aboard and asked me to move its cargo slightly in exchange for a ride. Some humans had loaded the ship wrong and pushed the cargo against important ship equipment, which was a safety hazard. It took me a long time to move the cargo because it was so heavy and the humans hadn’t left any moving equipment aboard.

I went and tucked myself away in a closet. As my organic muscles relaxed from the effort, I gradually started getting weird sensations in my skin, especially on my thighs, forearms, armpits and face. First it was a slight tingle. During the next 20 or so hours, it turned into a full-blown itch.

After two days of wishing it would go away and running scans that said nothing was wrong, I exited the closet and removed my armour on one forearm to inspect the issue. I couldn’t bring myself to inspect it before I had scratched my skin through the suit skin. And after I had scratched my skin, I noticed how exceedingly satisfying it felt. I hastily stripped the rest of my armour and scratched my skin all over.

After I was done, my skin felt very weird (but satisfied) and even stinged slightly in some places. I finally peeled the suit skin’s glove off and inspected my skin. I found out that it was disgusting. It was dirty and there were dead skin cells all over. Now that I was out of my armour, I noticed that the air on the ship felt very fresh, even though the bot pilot hadn’t upped its air conditioning from the minimal setting it was on. I smelled very bad.

I analysed my situation for 1.9 minutes and came to the conclusion that it had been 2.8 kilohours since I had last been in a cubicle. It had been that long since I had been cleaned in any way. Human skin had a tendency for generating extra cells and sweat, and this last physical effort had finally made my skin shed enough that I noticed it.

I knew what humans did when they were dirty. I figured I could do the same. I apologised to the bot pilot for being smelly and asked if it had a human shower on-board that I could use. It said yes and suggested that I could clean the spot where I was standing and use tape to create a no cargo zone in front of its important equipment. I agreed.

The ship’s shower was a tiny box and though I fit inside, it was difficult to get out of the suit skin there. I didn’t want to strip it outside of the shower, that’s how disgusting it was. At least it wasn’t quite as disgusting as the time when a client had been especially sensitive to wormhole transition and vomited right at my face and down my uniform shirt.

I turned the shower on and it sprayed water all over my body. I rubbed off all dead cells that I could. The waste water was gross. Then I applied soap and did it again. I also washed my suit skin, inside and outside. I increased the water pressure and cleaned all the joins between my organic and inorganic parts. My skin had many small, slightly reddened marks from my somewhat overenthusiastic scratching. My threat evaluation module didn’t have anything to say about them, so I figured that they were harmless. I was also fairly sure that human skin just fixed these kind of issues in a day or two on its own.

I stepped out of the shower. I was surprised at how fresh and nice I felt and how different it was to my previous state. Apparently dirt and dead skin cells crept up so slowly that it was difficult to notice them.

My suit skin needed drying, so I asked the bot pilot to up the air conditioning for a short while and then placed the suit skin under a vent. Then I went to get my armour and cleaned it too. Its inside wasn’t as gross as my skin or the suit skin, but it did smell, too. I placed the pieces next to my suit skin.

I went to search for visibility tape and used it to create zones in front of all important equipment on the ship. I taped the words `DO NOT BLOCK` into the zones for good measure because I knew it slightly increased the probability of humans respecting the zone. I let the bot pilot know that humans might still disrespect the zones, and it acknowledged.

Lastly, I cleaned the place where I had scratched myself. Then I went to stand next to the vent that was drying my suit skin and created a schedule for checking my cleanliness status. Finally, when the suit skin was dry, I put it and my armour back on and settled back into the closet. The bot pilot let me look at space.

* * *

The next time my body protested was when it had been 9 kilohours since I had last been in a cubicle. I got some system warnings that I had never seen before and didn’t even know existed. They said that I needed water and some nutrients and that I should immediately report for maintenance. I had no idea I needed those. Apparently the cubicles had automatically taken care of that, too.

I had to analyse my own schematics to figure out what to do. It was fortunate that I did have them. So, I stole a bag of water and a cheap syringe and injected the liquid through a hole where a maintenance lead was supposed to go. It was a weird and somewhat unpleasant experience and I wished I didn’t have to do it again. The alarm about water went away. However, the water wasn’t enough to satisfy the alarm about nutrients.

The nutrient alarm went up to another severity category before I found a ship carrying medical equipment, including nutrient solution for SecUnits. I stole a bag of nutrient solution from it and noted the ingredients if I ever needed to make such a solution myself. I injected the solution into myself and the alarm went away.


End file.
